Random Brain Dump

If you’re tired of the cinematic that plays everytime you launch AoK (Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings), there’s an optional parameter "NoStartup" that turns that annoying video off. Just add the paramter to the shortcut that launches the game like this:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\age2_x1\age2_x1.exe" NoStartup

For a complete list of command line parameters, check this knowledge base from Microsoft.

Our kids had a blast of a weekend, full of birthday parties. We took them to our friend Sandra & Brad’s party for their daughter Emily. Being My Little Pony themed, the kids got to wear cowgirl hats and ride a beautilful pony. Even Allison braved the crowd and took her ride without her parents’ help. Then on Sunday, the kids attended their cousin Malia’s birthday party when they were entertained by a magician.

Suzanne & I had fun just watching them and we also got to hang out with some of our friends. I also got to shoot a lot of pictures. Shooting kids on sugar high constantly running around is always challenging. And tiring… 🙂 But the shutter bug in me had fun nevertheless!

We spend this past labor day weekend houseboating with a bunch of family/friends at New Melones Lake. It was our first time houseboating. We spend the weekend eating, drinking, hot-tubbing, fishing, swimming and jet-skiing. The best part was sleeping under the open sky filled with stars and the beautiful moon. Surprisingly, I didn’t snap many pictures. Guess I was too busy having fun…

One funny incident involved my horrible navigation skill. One the morning, after we picked up the rest of the passengers. When we head out, I figured to hug the shorelines and go straight, figuring it’s a simple matter getting back the marina. Anyhow, we had various different people skippering the boat throughout the day and somehow we circled back and saw the same marina we departed from earlier in the day. Well, silly me. I figured that was a second marina. The next morning, when we head back to pick up the waverunner & refuel, I told Doc’s brother who was skippering the boat that morning to ignore the 1st marina and look for the 2nd marina. Needless to say, we wasted an hour or two wandering aimlessly. We had to stop and ask other boaters about this 2nd phantom marina! Of course, they thought we were out of our mind and told us that there’s only 1 marina on the lake. Normally, I’m pretty good with directions, but boy did I feel silly that morning. 🙂

Here are some of the shots from the trips…

Unless you haven’t been following the tech news of late, the HP board is in chaos. Board member resigning left & right, the chair woman is the latest victim. All stems from the questionable tactics used in investigation of information leaks in management– phone taps, illegal access of private computer records etc… Now, the scandal is drawing the attention of federal prosecutors. The feds are investigating HP.

The feds are investigating illegal wire tapping and invasion of privacy? They care about leaks? Let’s see… Remember George Tenant’s CIA leak? How about the Patriot Act and the bill aiming to allows the feds to wiretap anybody’s phone.

Doesn’t the irony just kills you? 🙂

A news reporter in LA uncovers scams at Jiffy Lube.

I hate Jiffy Lube. Some years ago, I took my old Celica for an oil change there before a long trip. I discovered later that the goofballs who worked there didn’t fill up the minimal amount of oil. Had I taken my car to Sacramento as planned, the Celica would probably be incinerated somewhere on interstate 80.

Jiffy Lube sucks.

A few years ago, a co-worker of mine Dan Hutchins gave me a copy of a strategy game called Age of Kings (AoK). Dan was a game reviewer so he gets all sorts of free games to evaluate. The basic premise of AoK is that you choose one of many civilizations from the middle ages, build up its economy and raise armies to conqueror other civilizations. I got a few of my buddies into it and pretty soon we were playing regularly online as a clan. The battles were always intense.

At the some point, I had to quit being an avid gamer with the birth of Allison– 2 kids were too demanding for any regular gaming. I constantly found my attention diverted while I was in middle of battles. Unfortunately, the “clan” was disbanded. I now definitely have a lot less time devoted to gaming than those “golden days.” However, the gamer in me never completely stopped playing. While still unable to play regularly, I discover that just 2 or 3 hours gaming on a Fri nite is very doable and with minimal interuption now that the kids are a few years older. With a beer next to me, it’s a good way to unwind after a week of work for me, though my wife wonders how I can still look at a computer monitor after a full work week (I’m a software developer). 🙂

I went through several games since AoK: Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 3, Battlefield 2, Rise of Nations etc… Despite the impressive array of 3D graphics, I must say I still miss the old gameplay, intensity and depth of AoK. Some of these 1st person shooters, while intense & fun to play, were making me nauseous! I tend to stick with strategy genre too. So a few weeks ago, my friend Alex & I were discussing how it was so much fun playing online with friends. Alex suggested that I revive the old AoK clan again.

So, this is a call to arms to my fellow weekend warriors. Let’s do AoK again. If you’re interested in playing, send me an email with your IM. I will place you on my AoK mailing list. Sorry, this is by private invitation only. No inquiries please, if I don’t know you.

Here’s the basic info on the game:
• We run version 1.0c of the Age of Kings with The Conquerors expansion pack. You can verify the version # by creating a multiplayer game, the version # is displayed between the player number & team number
• Game time: Fri 10PM
• Install & run XFire, for basic communication & coordination. Be sure that I have your XFire username.
• Open port 47624 (TCP & UDP) if you’re behind a router/firewall. You should only need to do port forwarding, port triggering shouldn’t be necessary. If your game still fails to connect, open these additional ports: 28800-29000 (TCP), 2300-2400 (TCP), 2300-2400 (UDP). If that still doesn’t work, put your machine in a DMZ.
• Game manual can be found in aoe2/aoc/AGE2_X1/DOCS folder of the CD

Connecting to our games:
1. Start the game (Aok: The Conquerors v1.0c)
2. Click on Multi-player
3. For Connection Type, select TCP/IP
4. Enter the server IP address (if you’re connecting for 1st time)
5. You should see a game if it’s being hosted
6. Select the game and click on Join

I ran across this little nifty tool called TaskSwitchXP. It enhances the old boring Windows task switcher by displaying small snapshot of each app. Simple enhancement but very cool & useful. Check it out.

The Oregon State Linux Users Group honors Firefox’s 200 million download milestone by creating this huge crop circle of the Firefox logo in the middle of an oat field. It’s 220 feet in diameter. How freakingly cool is that?

There is actually intelligent life out there on planet Earth! 😉

Here’s a blog advocating the idea of killing the caps lock key. The reasons seem justified to me. The little used key occupies precious keyboard real estate. I myself remaps it to the control key (old habits from the old days of mainframe keyboards). So, I’d say let’s kill it!

NASA announces that Voyager 1 reaches 100 astronomical units, or 9.3 billion miles, from the sun on Tue 8/15 at 2:13 PM (PST). It’s 100 times more distant from the sun than the Earth is. Traveling 1 million miles a day, it’s the most distant human-made object in space and is traveling at the outer edge of our solar system. It will hit interstellar space in 10 years.

And to think that the spacecraft was launched some 30 years ago. A mind boggling human achievement!